Discussion of WDS Scoring System

Background

First, the current scores:
https://players.planetside2.com/#!/wds

Now, the current point system:

Code:

Scoring system:
 
- Each hour that a territory remains owned by an empire that empire is given 3 points credited to that server.
 
- Each small outpost that is captured gives that empire 1 point credited to that server.
 
- Each large outpost that is captured gives that empire 2 points credited to that server.
 
- Each facility that is captured gives that empire 5 points credited to that server.

The Problem

The current system quite obviously does not take into account potential server population imbalance. It should. There are ways to fix it, and we should discuss them here just in case the population hasn't magically become 33-33-33 by next season. In fact, 3 out of the 4 scoring conditions actually deter the underpopulated factions from ganging up on the overpopulated faction to starve them of points. Let me explain:

Imagine a hypothetical server with 50% TR, 25% VS, and 25% NC players 24/7, all of equal skill and effectiveness in capturing bases. The VS and NC, realizing their plight, devote all their efforts to attacking the TR 100% of the time. Now if the TR plays it dumb, they will split their forces in half and have a complete stalemate along their front lines, resulting in the even point scoring that NC and VS were hoping for. However, if they are smart, they will throw everything at one side first, then the other, and repeat the pattern, and here is how the scenario will play out:

You'll notice that TR holds 50% of the territory at all times, while NC and VS hold an average of 25% of the territory at any given time. You might say this is to be expected, because TR has 50% population, but remember that NC and VS are exclusively attacking TR, and their combined population is also 50%. The result is fairly clear: TR gain points from the first scoring method twice as fast as the other factions.

But wait, there's more!

In addition to holding half the map at any given moment, TR also captures twice as much territory as the other factions. They capture a quarter of the map every "hour", which is the same as the faction they are currently ignoring, but the faction they are assaulting captures no bases at all during that time. So TR gain twice as many capture points compared to the other two factions in addition to the territory control points they are already winning by 2:1.

I also want to mention that if the TR adopted this tactic, NC and VS would either log off or switch to TR alts because they are either 1) ghostcapping against no resistance or 2) getting their butts kicked 2v1 all the time.

"So why don't NC and VS fight each other on this hypothetical server, at least they will get some capture points, right?" you might ask. Well, here's why:


Yeah.

Now, that was a hypothetical situation in which one faction had way more population than the other two. Such imbalance doesn't exist on any real server right now. But if current population trends continue, and I'm willing to bet that they will, things may get that bad somewhere down the road. It should be plainly obvious that the current scoring system is biased towards higher populations, so instead of b****ing and moaning about it, let's come up with a way to make it better.

The Solution


The first thing that needs to be done is get rid of the capture bonuses for territories. I can guess why they're there: to provide incentive to go out and fight instead of just sitting back and defending what you own, and to provide a sampling of the action that goes on between each hourly territory control check. But here's the bottom line: an overpopulated faction will always be able to capture territory by focusing all their efforts on one of the underpopulated factions, and thus these points are freely available to them, no matter who they attack. An underpopulated faction can only guarantee that they can earn these points by attacking the other underpopulated faction, thus making things even more imbalanced overall. This part of the scoring system needs to be completely removed. In return, I believe that the hourly territory check should happen four times more often- every 15 minutes- to show territories changing hands regularly instead.

The second thing that needs to be done is to make the territory control points reflect each faction's server population. I suggest keeping it simple by just dividing the territory control points each hour 15 minutes by the faction's population percentage on the server. For example, 100 territories owned by a faction with 50% population would be 100/(0.5) = 200 points, while 50 territories owned by a faction with 25% population would be 50/(0.25) = 200 points also. This gives the underpopulated factions something to actually fight for, because if they know that they will earn more points per territory as they get further behind in population, they won't abandon the fight altogether. They might stick it out and make some heroic defenses against tough odds, or at least slow down the attackers enough for the other faction to make a real dent in them somewhere else. They won't all switch to the overpopulated, winning side either, because doing so would mean the territories owned by that faction would be worth even less.

Suggested new scoring system:

Code:

Every 15 minutes that a territory is owned by an empire, that empire receives 1 point divided by their current server population percentage, credited to that server.

Let's take a look at the above example again and compare the two scoring systems. Remember that both NC and VS are fighting tooth and nail against the TR to try and keep the fight fair. Let's consider each progression arrow one "hour" of time for scoring in the old system and each quarter of the map as one "territory" to keep it simple.

Under the old system:
In the top left panel, TR gains 2 points for territory control and 1 point for pushing the NC away from their warpgate. NC gain 2 points for control, while VS gain 1 point for capturing against the TR.

TR = 3 | NC = 2 | VS = 1

In the top right panel, TR gains 2 points for control and 1 point for pushing towards the NC warpgate. NC gain 1 point for control, VS gain 1 point for control and 1 for capturing.

TR = 6 | NC = 3 | VS = 3

In the bottom right panel, TR gains 2 control and 1 capture point, NC gain 1 capture point, and VS gain 2 control points.

TR = 9 | NC = 4| VS = 5

And finally, bottom left, TR gain their 3 points, NC gain 1 for capture and 1 for control, and VS gain 1 for control.

Final score:
TR = 12 | NC = 6 | VS = 6

Remember that this is with both NC and VS working against TR. While they combined match the manpower of the TR and together have enough points to tie, in the end they will be considered separate factions, leaving TR with an astounding 2:1 win despite half the server being against them.

Under my proposed new system:
In the top left panel, TR holds 2 territories with 50% pop, giving them 4 points. NC holds 2 territories with 25% pop, giving them 8 points, and VS gain zero points.

TR = 4 | NC = 8 | VS = 0

In the top right panel, TR scores the same 4 points, while NC hold 1 territory at 25% pop for 4 points, and VS hold 1 territory at 25% for 4 points as well.

TR = 8 | NC = 12 | VS = 4

In right bottom right panel, TR scores 4 points, NC are warpgated and gain no points, and VS get 8 points for holding 2 territories at 25% pop.

TR = 12 | NC = 12 | VS = 12

And the bottom left panel is the same as the top right in scoring; each faction gets 4 points.

Final score:
TR = 16 | NC = 16 | VS = 16

All three factions tie in points earned towards victory in the event.

"But wait, that isn't fair, TR owned twice as much territory as the other two factions!" you might exclaim. Neither is having a serverwide population disadvantage. At least this system gives them a fighting chance at victory in the event - based on individual performance - instead of it being preordained by the server population.

So, what do you think? Am I a genius or a moron? Would this work, or would it fail completely? Do you have a better suggestion? By all means, post it below. I would love to hear it, and I'm certain that someone at SOE will be listening as well. This is still the pre-season, and while the current scoring system is heavily biased, it doesn't have to continue to be that way. Feel free to like this post or bump it if you think it is worthwhile, and discuss any and all ideas regarding future event scoring. All I ask is that you keep it on topic so that this thread is not locked; if you want to insult my mother or my personal hygiene please feel free to do so via PM, I promise I won't report you for it, here is the link.

P.S. Sorry you had to be the overpopulation scapegoat in my example, TR, but it's simply a fact that you have the highest population on my home server of Waterson for the majority of the day.

TL;DR Let's fix the event scoring system for the world domination series to give all factions a fighting chance regardless of population imbalance.

I think your theory and solution is much more complicated than it should be. Assuming even population, TR would need to spread out more, not to mention that facility density is slightly higher near the VS and NC Indar warpgates, not to mention how a significant amount of VS and NC players generally dislike TR more than each other right now.
The only problem that would arise is if one empire was majorly overpopulated or underpopulated, but a simple numbers adjustment could easily make up for it (see my current signature).

Never forget, the simplest solutions are often the most elegant and effective.

Your suggestion from that thread, so people don't have to spend as much time clicking:

The first line is exactly the same as my suggestion, although still based hourly because the capture points are also still in there, with similar tweaks ( although you cut the value of captures to a third of what they are instead of removing them entirely.)

All in all, also a good idea, and the similarity between the two indicates that we might both be on the right track.

I like this Rhino guy. He gets me.

It's worth saying that I also particularly want to hear feedback from people who ARE playing the overpopulated faction on their server, I know that most of you did not pick it for that reason, it simply became so afterwards and you had too much invested in your character to re-roll. Please tell me if you think this is fair, and what could make it better if it isn't.

I do think the system should have had more thought in terms of world pop, as you stated Rhino. It doesnt take much effort to see that the numbers are vastly skewed in TRs favor because of certain server. Miller, Watterson, Briggs im looking at you. If its a few thousand, okay maybe a slight populations imbalance or just better organization with larger outfits or outfit alliances. Nothing too unheard of there, organization does help.

But when you are almost double the 2nd place faction, it doesnt look like its just better players. Sure better players can make a huge difference but numbers mater greatly in this game. Numbers matter more so in terms of grabbing land because you simple have more people to attack and defend at the same time.

I cant speak for Miller, Watterson, or Briggs... but i dont want our faction to win simply because more people happen to flood over onto our side. You would think SOE would have some metrics on factions winning Alerts based on population that they would have seen this as a bad idea from the start.

On Briggs we struggle to fill one continent even at prime time (please come play on briggs), so the thingo is not so much how can we best distribute our forces, as who the hell wants to spend a month ghost capping?

The only fair way to score such things is to cap the populations to force them to be even. SOE continues to ignore this, while providing bonuses to the 'winning' side which is only making the problem worse.

It's some nice graphics and logic there Rhino, but I think the assumption that people would even bother trying against a numerous foe is one made in error.

As I said in another thread, SOE definitely knew, or should have known, this would be an issue. In fact, when they announced the scoring system one week before the even launched, forumside almost immediately noticed how the system favors the global overpop faction, even more so than Alerts (where the losers still get bonus XP). Yet here we are, two weeks afterwards, our fears have been confirmed, and SOE still hasn't budged an inch from their original plan, almost as if they either don't read the forums or just don't care, both of which I find genuinely unbelievable.

I play TR on waterson, have since dec. The whole event just seems silly to me, its not balanced and most people don't give a ****.

It smells like the last one they did with TB. Didn't care about that and do't care about this.


Your idea seems like a good one though. I am all for making it more balanced, if it was more balanced and fair then it might actually mean something to win it. Now I don't care either way.

Come to connery. the most balanced server in the world.

Nice to know that there are at least some people out there on the winning side who aren't happy either.

Ok. Let's say it's a good principle.

Now, please cycle the warpgate so we can stack some time up on North Indar. Oh - but that won't work either, because with enough numbers you can force your way up the East side of Indar, but without the population advantage you just can't get out of the canyons. So even with these adjusters, having more population will make you win more simply by virtue of geography.

Whoops.

You do?! There's never any real interaction here on the forums, it all happens on Reddit. I think they assume once you're here, you're a customer.. well, and they can delete or lock really negative threads. On Reddit though they have to fight their corner sincerely as it's "public domain".

All about the money.

WDS is only putting the spotlight on the population imbalance issue, and is causing a lot of frustration for players, tempting them to play (and therefore pay) even less. At the heart of every F2P game's revenue are the few people who care enough about the game to constantly buy stuff; WDS only chases them away, exchanging them for casual spenders who might pay a small, one-time amount before leaving for the next thing that grabs their fancy.

Couple that with how easy it would be to fix the scoring system (literally just having each number multiplied by a second number), and you have the reason why I find this so hard to believe.

(Callous) Devs care about money. Money is made from their game being good. Therefore (callous) devs should care about their game being good.

Yes, sorry, I was being flippant: what I meant was they spend more time on Reddit posting comments and ideas because it's a more "public" board than these. Therefore, it's worth their time from a monetary perspective to engage in 2-way dialogue on Reddit than on their "own" forums because it serves the double purpose of cheap social media advertising.

By way of example: we get static informational updates on here, and the occasional MOD posting "We value your custom, but please hold caller". But then that's it.

Other thing that is wrong with the current scoring system is that trading bases is more rewarding that trying to defend and hold your territory, conducting to unopposed rampaging zerg gameplay, which isn't fun at all.

If the population distribution is 50% TR 25% VS 25% NC then we would expect the distribution of territory to also be 50% TR 25% VS and 25% NC.

The solution to score is by a weighting points according to the populations so in the above scenario, if you had 1 point for every 1% of territory, you would have Points/Population = Score and the score would be 1 TR 1 VS 1 NC.

In about two weeks (when BF4 goes OB), we'll see how true this really is. I strongly suspect that whole outfits are going to disappear en masse.

As long as this happens...

Not necessarily. In this game the front line changes when one side has more strength than the other and can push them back. Numbers are certainly the largest contributing factor, although individual skill, faction coordination, squad tactics etc. also play their part. The point is, if one side has more pushing power (probably though population) they can push their territory forward and keep it pushed as long as they keep players there. Statistically, if TR had 51%, you would expect them to eventually hold the whole server through a slow but steady push and holding the line everywhere they didn't have the numerical advantage. Now, this doesn't actually happen, because combat in this game is based on player skill, not "X infantryman has Y hp and Z damage, so it always wins versus type V infantrymen" like traditional RTS games. However, generally the stronger side will advance, and if they were willing to sit back and defend their gains, they could hold the entire map, even with the other two factions combined against them, with 51% pop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers